"We were supposed to make a commercial, with possible viral potential," said Colbertaldo, 22. "The version for our class was only 30 seconds, so we put up a longer version on YouTube afterward."

The group headed to ShoppingTown Mall to look for costumes and rented the giant Cookie Monster suit at Dougherty's Masquerade.

Cookie Monster.Sesame Workshop

"We were just looking for something fun and we liked the idea of giving out cookies," Colbertaldo said.

Lenny Christopher suited up in Cookie Monster's fuzzy blue body and set off to pass out chocolate chip cookies around the SU campus, downtown Syracuse and Upstate Golisano Children's Hospital.

The video took a full day to shoot and produce. They came up with the hashtag #happinessiscontagious for people to use on social networks, since many people took photos of Cookie Monster during the shoot.

"We were hoping to get people talking about it and get it shared on Twitter," Colbertaldo said. Mission accomplished.